The Single-Origin Problem

It's a common and understandable relief: three people confirm the same account, so the reporting feels solid. But independence between sources isn't guaranteed by their number — it depends on where each account actually came from. If all three heard the same story from the same person at the same meeting, three confirmations describe one origin, not three.

This sounds obvious stated plainly, and yet it's the single most frequent issue we see in corroboration work. Accounts spread through a small professional circle in the ordinary course of things — colleagues discuss what happened, and by the time a reporter interviews the third or fourth person, that person's account has absorbed details from the conversation, not just from direct experience.

Tracing the path, not just the content

Our corroboration sessions start with a simple question for each source: how did you come to know this — were you present, did someone tell you, and if so, who? Mapped out, this produces something closer to a small family tree of accounts than a flat list. Some branches genuinely diverge, each with its own vantage point. Others collapse back into a single trunk.

• Direct, first-hand observation of the event itself
• Secondhand account, heard from a named person present
• Account absorbed through general discussion, origin unclear

What the table is for

The written assessment we deliver isn't a verdict on whether a story stands up — that's the reporter's call, made with fuller context than we have. It's a table showing which claims rest on genuinely separate observation and which rest, however sincerely repeated, on a single origin. From there, the reporter can see exactly where one more independent account would matter most.

"The gap is rarely dishonesty. It's usually just how information moves through a small group of people who trust each other."

Treating that gap plainly, rather than assuming it away, tends to make the eventual story sturdier — and easier to defend if a subject later disputes it.